


Broken Bird's Wing

by sheafrotherdon



Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Art, Artist Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani, Ceramics repair, Craftsman Nicky, Crossover, Falling In Love, First Kiss, First Time, Found Family, Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani and Nicky | Nicolò di Genova are in Love, M/M, Metal Working, Nicky | Nicolò di Genova Needs a Hug, Pining, Switch Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani, Switch Nicky | Nicolò di Genova, The Repair Shop - Freeform, woodworking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-29
Updated: 2021-01-29
Packaged: 2021-03-15 08:14:48
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 14,009
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29061168
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sheafrotherdon/pseuds/sheafrotherdon
Summary: He’s two weeks into his search when he sees the advertisement, small and unassuming, tucked away in the back of the local newspaper.  “Andromache Restoration seeks furniture restoration specialist,” it says, and provides a mailing address to which applicants can send a portfolio.  Nicky pauses, coffee cup halfway to his mouth, more than a little stunned by the opportunity.  He knows of Andromache Restoration—knows the artists there from the work they’ve done across London, the paintings cleaned and repaired, the ceramics restored from broken pieces, the metalwork reforged.
Relationships: Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Comments: 276
Kudos: 777
Collections: The Old Guard Big Bang





	1. The Bird

**Author's Note:**

> With such grateful thanks to dogeared for beta.
> 
> Art by the lovely BST - you can leave them feedback at [[tumblr]](https://blood-suits-and-tears.tumblr.com/) or [[AO3]](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bloodsuitsandtears/)!

The offer of a sublet comes just as Nicky begins to feel restless again. The cousin of a colleague, moving in with her girlfriend-- the details are uninteresting, but the idea of London intrigues him. Paris has been good to him--he’s enjoyed his work for the Musée Carnavalet--but conservation is not enough. Nicky misses the creative work of restoration and the time to focus on his own designs. He has money saved, few connections in Paris, and it’s been a long time since he was last in London.

The day he’s asked to preserve the inlay on another table chiffionièrre is the day he quits.

The flat turns out to be better than he expected, with a large kitchen, a living room with beautiful natural light, and a tiny bathroom and bedroom that are, Nicky supposes, completely sufficient. He moves in with his tools and his books, buys a new mattress, finds enough second-hand furniture online to make do, and only then begins to send out feelers for someone who needs the skills he has. 

He’s two weeks into his search when he sees the advertisement, small and unassuming, tucked away in the back of the local newspaper. “Andromache Restoration seeks furniture restoration specialist,” it says, and provides a mailing address to which applicants can send a portfolio. Nicky pauses, coffee cup halfway to his mouth, more than a little stunned by the opportunity. He knows of Andromache Restoration—knows the artists there from the work they’ve done across London, the paintings cleaned and repaired, the ceramics restored from broken pieces, the metalwork reforged. He knows no one’s name save the owner’s, but would bet—all in—on being able to pick out their collective craftsmanship if pressed. There was once a woodsmith there, he’s sure of it—someone whose choice of veneers Nicky has sometimes questioned, but who was deeply talented all the same.

Nicky throws the rest of his coffee down the sink, then spends the day constructing a portfolio he trusts to send away, slipping photo after photo into an old-fashioned, leather-bound folder. He could print something in a quarter of the time, but he lingers over each shot, some black and white, some color, everything processed from film. By late afternoon it’s done, wrapped and packaged and overnighted to the address in the advertisement.

He doesn’t exactly forget he’s thrown in his hat, but the phone call three days later is still a surprise.

*****

It’s a fifteen-minute train ride to Esher, and a twenty-minute walk after that from the station to the converted barn on the outskirts of town. Nicky assesses the place once it’s in his sights, with its thick stone walls and slate roof, set back from the road by a circular gravel driveway. There’s a pasture beyond the barn where two black horses are running, and the field is surrounded by dry stone walls and a sturdy fence, by towering growths of oak and sycamore, chestnut and pine. The barn’s large, wooden doors are thrown open to the late summer warmth--made of oak, he would guess from the width of the cross-beams--and there’s a tall, dark-haired woman outside, drinking something from a mug. Nicky hitches his backpack higher onto his shoulder and picks up the pace, certain he’s being watched, much as he’s doing himself.

“You must be Mr di Genova,” says the woman as he crunches up the driveway, and she steps forward to offer her hand.

“Nicky, please,” he says, shaking it.

She smiles and gives him a nod. “You can call me Andy,” she offers, just a touch reserved. “Glad you could make it. Shall we?” she asks, jerking her thumb over her shoulder.

Nicky expects the interior of the barn to be dim after the sunlight outside, but it’s brightly lit. There are skylights set into the back slope of the roof and good, clean overhead lights as well as lamps at the jumbled workstations in front of him. There’s a workstation behind him and to his right, with a long workbench at exactly the height he’d need to do his job. He badly wants to wander over and run his hand over the worn oak there, introduce himself to the wood and the space around it, but Andy coughs politely, and he gives her his attention.

One corner of her mouth lifts into a smirk. “You can check it out later,” she says, and heads to the far-left corner of the barn. “Nile? This is Nicky.”

Nile looks up, eyes comically big behind a pair of magnifying goggles, and Nicky smiles. “Pleased to meet you,” he says, offering her his hand as she pushes the googles up into her hair, and she grins at him warmly.

“Nile,” she says. “Ceramics.” An American accent, Nicky thinks, as she pulls the goggles off completely, the strap tangling in one of her long braids. “Goddamn it.”

“Please, don’t stop on my account,” Nicky says, gesturing to the tiny vase on her bench. There are damp smudges of paint on a palette at her elbow, a spectrum of greens, each one a shade darker than the shade before. “If it dries before you can finish . . .”

“Nah, I can recreate it,” she says confidently, coming around the bench. “So you’re from Italy.”

Nicky nods. “Sì.”

Nile chuckles and looks over at Andy, who’s still wearing a steady half-smile.

“You’ve traveled quite a bit,” Andy says. “Oslo, Sao Paulo . . .”

“Frankfurt, St Petersburg,” Nile adds.

“Paris,” says Nicky. “I enjoy learning, and each of these places . . .”

“Something new?” Nile asks. She sounds as if she approves.

He nods. “Something new.” He warms to Nile, to her frankness. “May I?” he asks, gesturing toward the vase. “I will not touch.”

“Keep it respectful,” she agrees, and Nicky steps closer to the bench. He pulls his reading glasses out of his shirt pocket, puts them on, and studies the vase for a long, quiet moment. “I cannot see what you have mended,” he says at last.

“Well, that’s kinda the point,” she offers, but he can tell she’s pleased.

“FOUND IT,” someone yells, walking into the barn. “Hey, did that guy show up?”

Nicky turns and sees, over the top of his glasses, a man so strikingly handsome that Nicky hiccups instead of breathing, and then coughs and narrowly avoids choking. The man does a double-take, eyebrows raised and eyes wide. “Nicolò di Genova,” he says, and the man’s surprise is replaced with obvious, infectious delight. He walks toward Nicky, then turns back and sets a jar of murky liquid on his workbench before turning around again, hand outstretched. “I’ve been looking forward to meeting you.” His handshake is warm and firm, and he claps his other hand atop Nicky’s before he lets go. “You’ll take the job, right?”

Andy lets out an exasperated sigh. Nile just laughs out loud. “This is Joe,” she says.

“Paintings,” Joe says with a grin.

“With paint,” Nicky says, nodding, and immediately presses his lips together to stop anything else spilling out.

“Your portfolio was far and away the best,” Joe continues, and Andy takes a half-step toward him, eyebrows raised.

“You’re a menace,” she says to him, and Joe’s grin deepens. Nicky notices the laugh lines beside his eyes.

“Ah, c’mon boss, you love me,” Joe says to Andy, taking a step back, and then another, and says—gesturing toward his workbench—“but I’ll just get back to work.”

Andy turns toward Nicky, making a small, helpless gesture. “Incorrigible,” she says.

“I heard that!” Joe shouts.

Nicky is intrigued, but nods agreeably.

“So . . .” Nile offers.

“Since Joe blew our cover, let’s just skip to the most important part, shall we?” Andy asks. She inclines her head toward the empty workbench across from Joe’s and leads the way back across the barn. Ducking behind the bench, she re-emerges with a bird in her hands—a wooden bird, Nicky realizes; a wooden bird with a broken wing.

“May I?” he asks, itching to reach out and pick it up.

“I’d like you to fix it,” Andy says, nodding.

Nicky smiles. It seems he’s there for an audition, not an interview, and he doesn’t mind at all; he’s always preferred showing what he can do rather than telling. He reaches out and picks up the bird, runs his fingers gently across the slope of its back. “Cherry,” he says to himself as much as to anyone else. He turns the bird over but there’s no maker’s mark, nothing to date it but its patina. Nicky brushes his fingertips over the break in the wing, reaches out for the missing piece and fits it gently in place. Whatever happened to the bird happened with force – the edge is splintered, the span of the wing slightly cracked, the tip missing altogether. 

“Do you have your tools with you?” asks Nile.

“In my bag,” says Nicky. He sets down the bird and the wing and lets his backpack slip off his shoulder. “You have wood?”

Andy nods. “You think you can do it?”

Nicky looks up at her. “I think you already know,” he says cheerfully.

The repair takes time. Everything needs cleaning. There’s aging wood glue to pick from the break with the tip of a scalpel before Nicky can apply anything new, splinters to replace with tiny amounts of wood filler, shaped by Nicky’s fingers to match the curve of the wing. Nicky rummages through the scrap wood Andy provided and finds a nugget of cherry he can whittle into a wingtip, works with his smallest tools to etch feathers into the wood. He loses track of time, pours his attention into following the grain, accepting what it will allow, and when he finally glues the wing back to the body of the bird, he’s pleased with what he sees. There’s more work to be done, but for that he needs paint and stain, and he has none with him. He straightens up, blinking, and stretches his arms to crack his back. It’s quiet save for the call of birdsong from outside, and the sun has shifted, throwing new shadows across the barn’s rough-hewn floor. Nicky notices a mug of tea on his bench and picks it up. It’s cold, but he drinks it anyway, pushing back to walk over to where Joe is working with whisper-thin sheets of silk, binding the damaged back of a painting back together.

Joe looks up. “You finished?”

Nicky shakes his head, keeping a healthy distance between him, the cold tea in his hands, and the painting. “I need paint, and I wondered if . . .”

“I’m sure I have everything you need,” Joe says with a smile before Nicky can finish the sentence.

Nicky swallows hard and feels a prickle of heat across his face, but clears his throat and says, “cherry tones, of course – if you have umber, some ochres . . .” He drinks from his mug. It must be a very dry day. “A paintbrush? Quite small.”

Joe outfits him with everything he needs, pulling brushes from two different jars, a palette from a shelf, hands moving deftly over the paint colors until he pulls out one and another to show Nicky, each of them bending their heads to look at the swatches in sunlight and then under Joe’s lamp. When Nicky sits back down at his own bench he feels just the tiniest bit restless, something itching under his skin that he can’t name. Nerves, he supposes, as he begins to blend the exact shade he wants to cover the resin, barely noticing that Joe’s followed him and is watching with interest.

“Where’d you learn to paint?” Joe asks.

“Art school,” Nicky says casually, testing the paint with a tiny dot of color against the repaired break. He smiles when it almost matches; it needs just a touch of red to warm it.

Joe hums an acknowledgement and leans his hip against the workbench, crosses his arms and continues to watch. Nicky’s aware of him—a warm presence, the soft blue of his linen shirt in his peripheral vision—but focuses on the paint and the wing and only realizes Joe’s seen the whole process when he puts down the finished bird.

“Impressive,” says Joe softly.

Nicky puts down his brush and splays the fingers of his right hand, wiggling them and stretching them. “Thank you,” he says, and looks up, feeling light. “Do I still have the job?”

Joe laughs, and pushes off from the bench. “I’d say so. Let’s go find the boss.”

*****

Nicky gets the job. He spends his first few days taking inventory of the few things the last woodsmith left behind, ordering supplies, and figuring out the organization of his share of the barn. Andy buys him a large white mug with his initial on it, just like the rest of them have, “although you’ll have to settle for a little N,” she says. “Nile was here first.”

He learns, little by little, more about the operation, sometimes with a well-timed question, sometimes simply by listening. The guy before him was called Booker—a longtime friend of Andy’s who cleared out his tools one night and went to work for Steven Merrick, antiques dealer to financiers and lawyers with pretensions of taste. Nicky’s heard of Merrick. Anyone who knows furniture knows about Merrick and his excess of money and ego, his predilection for buying up entire collections to sell at an even greater mark-up, and Nicky’s even known a couple of his infamously badly-treated staff. Andy’s tight-lipped about the whole situation, and Joe deflates visibly when Booker’s name comes up. Nile’s the only one who’ll speak freely.

“I thought he was a good guy,” she tells Nicky, helping him haul a delivery of paint, stain, and cast-off wood into the barn. “Messed up, but . . .”

“Messed up?”

Nile hitches a shoulder. “Lost his kids in a divorce he didn’t want and never really got past it,” she offers. “Drank a lot.”

“Ah.” Nicky pointedly does not think of his own family. “That’s hard.”

“Copley’s doing forensic work on the books to try and figure out if that’s part of the story but that’ll take time.”

“Copley?”

“Accountant.”

Nicky shadows Andy, Nile, and Joe one by one to better learn their work and their style. He’s fascinated by Andy’s work, by the strength and dexterity it takes for her to work wrought iron, her body strength pitted against the effects of neglect.

“How did you start this?” he asks when she takes a break, wiping sweat from her face with her hand. She reaches for her water bottle and drinks thirstily before she answers.

“Weapons,” she says.

“Weapons?”

“Swords. Pikes. Battle axes. They were my favorite part of going to museums as a kid.”

Nicky knows something of that feeling—the connection to something beautiful and the stories attached, the yearning to reach through the glass of a display case and touch a piece of history.

“So I apprenticed. Horseshoes. Garden gates. Eventually made my own sword.”

Nicky blinks. “A sword?”

Andy grins at him. “I’ll have you over some time. I make all my own stuff.”

He can only imagine the expression on his face. “I will work hard to stay on your good side,” he says at last, and is delighted when she laughs.

He and Nile find much to discuss about ceramic fillers, epoxies, and the removal of glue from past repairs, and Nile even trusts him to try and make the outer edge of a broken petal from a clock case she’s working on. Nicky thinks he does a fair job, but watches with wonder as Nile takes one of her tools and lifts the petal’s edge just so, transforming it from fair to beautiful. “I have a knack,” she says, smiling, and then they’re talking about paint and plaster, and he’s learning all about her time studying art history, the internship that brought her to England, the chance meeting with Andy that brought her to the barn.

“Do you miss home?” he asks her as she blends just the right shade of rose pink for the petal.

“Yeah. Now that it’s Fall, especially. Never knew a place could get so much rain until I moved here.” She compares the pigment on her brush to that on the undamaged part of the petal, dabs a little on the now-solid petal’s edge and goes back to blending. “You?”

Nicky shouldn’t be surprised that she’s curious, but the question takes him aback for a second. “I miss . . . some things,” he says vaguely, and gets a sharp look from Nile.

“Mmhmm?” she says, eyebrow raised.

He shakes his head. “I do not have a home there anymore.”

Nile’s expression softens, but she doesn’t ask more questions, just asks him to pass another palette and keeps blending paint.

Joe is less subtle the next day. “Nile says you don’t think of Genoa as home.”

Nicky lets out a huff of laughter at the way his words have been mangled. “I did not say that.”

“So what did you say?” asks Joe, angling a small painting he’s holding toward the light.

“I said I had no home there anymore.”

Joe looks at him for a long, thoughtful moment, and Nicky has to stop himself from shifting from foot to foot under the scrutiny. “Your family?”

“They are there,” Nicky says, attempting to keep his tone light. “But they . . . do not approve.” He clears his throat. “Of me.”

Joe sets the painting on the bench, frowning.

“Joe, it’s fine, it has been some time since this happened, and . . .”

Joe shakes his head. “I’m sorry.”

Nicky’s thrown off balance by Joe’s simple expression of kindness. He tries to offer a smile, but Joe’s gaze is too honest for it to stand a chance, and Nicky looks down at the bench, searching for a way to change the subject. “Heat damage, you were saying.”

“Yeah.” Joe nods and lets out a breath. “Heat damage.” He circles a finger over the lower right corner of the painting where the oils have fractured into spiderwebs of color. “A radiator probably, perhaps candles.”

“How do you fix it?”

Joe hands him a long silver implement, not unlike a small trowel, and Nicky turns it over in his hands. “My heated spatula,” Joe says with a grin, as if he’s talking about the holy grail. “Behave yourself and I’ll let you try it.”

“Behave myself?”

Joe nods, pretending toward solemnity. “You seem the type to cause trouble,” he says, and Nicky laughs again, pulls up a stool and sits as Joe opens up a box of acrylic sheets and keeps up a running commentary about the British problem of damp.

*****

Work begins to trickle in as word travels that Nicky is established at the barn. First come chairs, some with upholstered seats, some without. There’s a piano bench that’s seen decades of wear, with chipped carvings and missing embellishments, all of which Nicky recreates. His bench becomes cluttered with glue and nails, with curls of wood and discarded clamps. Though he sweeps and tidies each evening, it takes no time at all for his work area to be thick with sawdust, and more than once Joe has to dust him off before they go to lunch lest he shed fine wood shavings along the way. 

Nicky begins to see where he can be useful around the barn. He brings in two canisters of his favorite tea to share, writes ‘try me!’ on a post-it note, and leaves both in the kitchen area beside their mugs. When Nile complains that her workbench is wobbling he helps shore up the corner with shims of wood. Joe takes in a painting that will need two solid weeks of work, and Nicky offers to fix the frame, repairing a crack and cleaning everything until it shines. He leaves the frame on Joe’s workbench for him to find, and catches sight of him touching the repaired corner with a small smile on his face before he can look up and give Nicky his thanks.

When a desk comes in, covered in water stains and ravaged in places by now-dead woodworm, Nicky feels a weight lift from his shoulders, knowing that as far as the barn’s clients are concerned, he’s earned their trust. He works late, long past when the others have left, preferring the company of the desk to the emptiness of his flat, easing his chisel through fresh wood to mimic the sweep and curve of the desk’s undamaged places. He loses himself in his work, and when he hears someone clear their throat just inside the barn doors one evening, he has no idea how long that person may have been standing there.

“Scusa,” Nicky says, setting down his chisel and rounding the bench. “I apologize, I was just . . .”

“I can see you’re hard at work,” says the man, an elderly gentleman holding tight to a cardboard box. “I don’t mean to disturb you.”

“No, no. You do not disturb me. How can I help?”

The man offers him the box. “I heard that there might be someone here who can fix this.”

Nicky nods and takes the box, beckons the man over to his bench. The flaps of the box are tucked around each other; the weight of the box offers no clue to what’s inside. Nothing rattles, at least, Nicky thinks as he eases the box open. Inside is the unexpected--a disheveled teddy bear, not a figurine or a piece of art. It’s not much larger than Nicky’s broad hand. “My goodness,” he says, unable to help himself from running a finger over the bear’s nose where its fur is still plush.

“It’s my wife’s, you see,” says the man. “And it’s her birthday in three weeks.”

Nicky opens his mouth to let the man down gently, to explain that they have no one who specializes in toys.

“I took it to Merrick’s,” the man continues. “He wanted to buy it. Said it was worth too much to let some ordinary person have it.”

Nicky mouths “ordinary person” to himself, and feels a lick of anger in his chest. “This is a very well-loved bear,” he offers.

The man smiles. “Her father bought it for her when she was born. 1937. He died in the war.”

“Ah, I’m sorry.” Nicky looks back at the bear.

“It’s been a hard year—she’s been ill, you know—and I thought if I could just get him spruced up . . .”

Nicky feels himself begin to give. He can sew. He is dexterous. He’s willing to learn. “We cannot make him look like new,” he cautions.

“No, no. Wouldn’t want you to. Just, you know, fix where the stuffing’s coming out. Maybe give him back his lost eye.”

“Three weeks, you say?” Nicky looks at the man, who nods, looking hopeful. Nicky breaks. “I will make it my special project.”

The man beams. “Thank you. Oh, my word, thank you.”

“Let me take down your details,” Nicky says, reaching for the leather notebook at the edge of his bench. “We will make it right.”

*****

Nicky takes the bear home that evening to work on it privately. He can’t quite say why—it’s certainly not that he’s embarrassed to be helping out a man who wants to give such a gift to his wife, but he’s not entirely sure whether the others would judge his choice. He’s needed sewing skills to do the basic reupholstering he allows himself to do, but he is no expert at repairing bears and doubts his upholstery needles will do the job. He orders in food and sits at what passes for his dining-room table shoveling noodles into his mouth as he watches YouTube tutorial after YouTube tutorial. Before he goes to bed he Googles the location of a fabric shop, and makes a note of the address.

Nicky takes a detour the next morning, stopping in at the fabric shop with the bear—Signor Orso—in his box. With the help of two shop assistants, both of whom are confusingly attentive, he picks out the elegant mohair fabric he’ll need to replace the bear’s threadbare belly and feet, debates the merits of commercial dye over soaking the fabric in tea, and selects two bright, black buttons for Signor Orso’s new eyes. He buys needles – tiny needles that are small between his fingers—and dressmaker’s pins as a substitute for upholstery skewers. With thread and a small pair of scissors added to his pile, he pays for everything out of pocket instead of on the company card, and he drops it all back at the flat before he heads to the train station and out to the barn.

Nicky feels beholden to explain his actions to Signor Orso before unpicking so much as a stitch that next evening. It takes most of the night to remove the stuffing and loosen the arms and legs from the bear, the evening after that to soak the bear in gentle, soapy water until he’s clean. Nicky dyes the fabric he bought—tea, not commercial dye—and for several days there are parts of Signor Orso drying on Nicky’s radiators and the back of his sofa while he patiently makes patterns for and cuts out new pads for the soles of Signor Orso’s feet. When everything is clean, dry, cut, and mended, he fills the bear’s limbs with fresh stuffing until he’s once again rotund, exactly as Nicky thinks a bear should be. Nicky sits with pins between his lips, glasses perched on his nose, and night after night sews Signor Orso back together again with careful, neat stitches. Two days before his three weeks are up he calls the old gentleman from home and tells him the repairs are done, then he sleeps the sleep of the exhausted and satisfied and dreams of punching Merrick in the throat.

The gentleman arrives two days later, his wife in tow. Nile and Andy are at an auction; it’s just Joe and Nicky at the barn. Joe sees the couple first. “Can I help you?” he asks cheerfully.

“I know these clients,” Nicky says with a smile, and rounds his bench to shake the gentleman’s hand. “Signora,” he says to the gentleman’s wife, reaching for her hand and kissing it. “It is a pleasure to meet you. Happy birthday.”

“My word,” she says, smiling broadly. “Do you know why we’re here?”

“I do,” says Nicky conspiratorially, and ushers them over to his bench, dragging over two stools so that they can sit. Joe wanders over, clearly intrigued.

“Do tell me what this is all about,” says the woman.

“Yes, Nicolò, what is this all about?” asks Joe, quirking an eyebrow.

Nicky throws him a look, then reaches below the bench to pull out a crate covered in a folded dropcloth. “I have been working on something,” he says, and pushes the crate toward his visitors.

“Go on,” says the gentleman at his wife’s bewildered expression.

She shrugs, and pulls the dropcloth from the crate. Inside, Signor Orso is sitting happily, a bright blue ribbon tied around his neck. His owner gasps and claps her hands to her face. “My bear!” she says, eyes wide.

Nicky smiles as she picks him up out of the crate and pulls him close, hugging him like a long-lost friend. 

“He’s been so delicate for so long,” she tells Nicky, and finally holds him at arm’s length to see everything that’s been repaired. “Oh, he’s _beautiful_.”

Nicky flushes and glances at Joe, who’s looking at him with wide, bright eyes, a small, stunned smile on his face. Nicky pulls a face, and Joe laughs, and then the gentleman and his wife offer a shower of thanks, asking questions about Signor Orso’s belly, his feet, the bow around his neck, and Joe drifts away.

Later, much later, as dusk creeps over the barn, Joe catches Nicky as he’s about to leave. “That was a special thing you did,” he says, and Nicky flushes.

“It was nothing,” he said. “A favor to the universe.”

Joe nods. “I’m not sure the world is worthy of your kindness,” he says, squeezing Nicky’s shoulder, and then he turns back to his bench and picks up his cleaning tools again.


	2. The Frame

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It’s six weeks before Joe and Nicky realize they live in the same part of the city, three streets apart, and a full ten seconds more before Joe suggests they drive to and from work together. It is a sign of something Nicky doesn’t want to examine too closely that he agrees immediately, even knowing the stories Nile has told him about Joe’s driving.

It’s six weeks before Joe and Nicky realize they live in the same part of the city, three streets apart, and a full ten seconds more before Joe suggests they drive to and from work together. It is a sign of something Nicky doesn’t want to examine too closely that he agrees immediately, even knowing the stories Nile has told him about Joe’s driving.

“I am an excellent driver,” Joe protests.

“You are an _aggressive_ driver,” Nile corrects.

“It’s London!” he says, as if this clarifies everything.

Nile simply shakes her head sadly and makes the sign of the cross.

Nicky doesn’t find Joe’s driving overly aggressive—perhaps this should concern him—but he does find there’s something compelling about the way Joe shifts gears. It’s possible it’s simply his hands, which Nicky has seen wield cleaning solvent and paintbrushes with gentleness, now put to a different purpose as he grips the gear stick and moves from second to first. Joe’s fingers are long and tapered and his nails are always short and clean, and Nicky zones out more than once on the drive to or from the barn thinking about how strange it is that he’d find them so distracting.

“Are you with me?” Joe asks on one such occasion.

“Yes, sure. He thought Michaelangelo was only a ninja turtle,” Nicky replies.

“Yeah, so not a terrible date, but I don’t think he’s . . . quite who I’m looking for,” Joe says.

Nicky nods solemnly. “At the very least he should acknowledge that the ninja turtles are actually tortoises.”

“Right?” Joe exclaims.

Nicky looks forward to each drive—to Joe being the first person he sees in a morning, and to the welcome conversations that constitute their winding down from work on the way home. They cover their favorite books—“of poetry?” asks Joe, and Nicky makes the mistake of agreeing that sure, they can be books of poetry. He doesn’t get a word in edgewise for the rest of the ride. They discuss music, art, politics, history, the oldest places they’ve been, the places no one should go, their favorite means of getting to places, old and new, and there’s a short but memorable tangent into talking about camels. They never seem to run out of conversation—there’s always something new to ask, to know, about even the smallest things, like their favorite-sounding words.

“Love,” says Joe firmly. “No matter the language. It’s without question the most beautiful word imaginable.”

Nicky blinks and frowns. “In English it is . . . _love_ ,” he says, emphasizing the word. “Harsh. Unbeautiful.”

“How can a word that describes something so necessary be without beauty?” Joe asks.

“LOVE!” Nicky offers as his rejoinder.

Joe sighs, exasperated. “But ‘amore’ . . .”

“Yes, in Italian it is a beautiful word.”

“In Arabic, in French, in German . . .”

“Liebe,” says Nicky, trying it out. “Sure.”

“You’re missing my point,” Joe presses. “How can you not like love?”

“I enjoy love in many languages . . .”

Joe snorts.

“You are a child,” says Nicky. “Besides . . .”

“Besides what?”

Nicky shakes his head. “Love is not always beautiful.”

Joe frowns and chews on his bottom lip. “Say more.”

Nicky shrugs and looks out the passenger window. “It can lead to heartbreak. To anguish.”

“Surely it’s not love itself that does that,” Joe offers after visibly thinking it over. “The absence of love, perhaps. . .”

There’s a long moment of silence between them, and Nicky feels the weight of it pressing upon him. Something inside him wants to tell Joe everything; something prods him toward the kind of transparency he hasn’t shared with anyone since he left Italy. Something, equally, wants him to sit quietly, to run away by sitting utterly still. “I was supposed to be a priest,” he says eventually.

Joe raises an eyebrow, but he says nothing.

“I loved God very much. And I thought I could live on that alone—that I could deny the rest of myself and everything would be okay.”

“Nicky . . .”

“But I couldn’t,” Nicky says simply, raising his hands in an empty gesture before letting them fall back to his lap.

“Anguish,” Joe says softly.

Nicky clears his throat and brushes his hair back from his face. It’s getting longer, just like his stubble--perhaps a sign he’s relaxing into this new life. “Not anymore.”

“Really?”

Nicky smiles wryly. “Mostly.”

They drive in silence for a while, quiet save for the sound of Joe’s fingers tapping on the steering wheel. “You know that wasn’t you?”

“I don’t follow.”

“It’s not. . . you didn’t fail,” Joe says. The words don’t seem to be coming to him easily.

“Ah,” Nicky says. “You should talk to my parents. They are very clear on this matter.”

“I really shouldn’t,” Joe says quietly.

Nicky feels a burst of gratitude inside his chest. “Perhaps not.”

A longer silence. “’anta taʿnī al-kaṯiīra bilnisbaẗi liī,”* says Joe, as they pull onto Nicky’s street.*

“Hmm?”

“Just another way to communicate love,” Joe says with a lopsided smile as he double parks. “I’ll see you tomorrow?”

“Tomorrow,” Nicky agrees.

*****

In November it rains—and rains, and rains, and rains. It’s cold enough that Andy closes the barn’s doors and hangs a “We’re Open” sign on the outside. Nicky’s worked in enough places that were freezing in winter—museums; a company in Heidelberg—that he expects to freeze during this one, but he’s pleasantly surprised to find that the barn is comfortable once the heat kicks in. Still, mornings are chilly, and he works in sweaters and fingerless gloves whenever he can, his breath making clouds in the air. 

The end of the year is in sight, and people remember Christmas, and the number of clients who come in seeking help increases five-fold. Nicky hates to turn anyone away—would rather work the extra hours to see someone made happy than point out that their lack of planning is at issue, and he frequently has three or four projects on the go at once. As he gently strips the varnish from a jewelry box, he has clamps holding bleached veneer in place on a rosewood table, and stain drying on a carpenter’s chest he’s lovingly restored. He finds a rhythm that pleases him, moving steadily from one job to the next, and while Nile has to remind him to eat lunch, and Joe keeps putting mugs of tea on his bench that keep going cold, he’s happier than he’s been in a very long time.

Rather than celebrate Christmas, which means nothing to Andy and Joe, they each pick a name out of Andy’s wool hat for a New Year’s Eve gift exchange “because presents are always awesome,” says Andy. There are established rules that Joe and Nile share, raising their voices to talk over each other—no one can buy supplies costing more than £30; everything must be handmade; scavenging from around the barn is allowed—and Nicky laughs at them both as they tell him the things they’ve made in years past, their triumphs and failures of ingenuity and design. 

“You should come over for dinner,” Joe tells him one night as they drive home. It’s dark and wet and the street lights reflect in the puddles on the road. Nicky is glad not to be walking to the train.

“Tonight?” he asks.

“Why not?” Joe asks. “Got big plans?”

Nicky huffs. “I could have.”

“Do you?”

Nicky lifts his chin and looks out of the window. “No.”

“So come over. Napoli’s playing Inter-Milan. We can watch.”

It sounds nice. There are a dozen take-away places around Joe’s flat, and Nicky would enjoy the company. “Okay. But I hate both those teams.”

Joe nods. “Fair,” he offers.

They circle twice before they find parking, and have to run through the rain to get to where Joe lives. His flat sits above an antiques store that Nicky’s never seen open, although Joe assures him they’ve been there for years, surviving the vagaries of every unpredictable economy. Joe lets them in through the unassuming front door, and they climb the nondescript stairs.

“Welcome,” Joe says as he unlocks his door and lets Nicky inside.

Joe’s flat is warm, and well lived in, and full of color. Nicky wanders into the living room as he takes off his jacket, drawn in by the enormous sofa, the vibrant cushions, the art on the walls. There are photographs of places Nicky doesn’t recognize, shades of bright orange and sear stone, and on the wall above the fireplace—“It doesn’t work!” Joe calls out cheerfully—a stunning piece of art. Nicky drapes his jacket over a chair and stands in front of the painting, drinking in the color and vitality. When he looks at it one way it’s a market scene, throngs of people weaving between green awnings, children playing soccer in the street, piles of wares for sale. When he looks again it’s merely washes of color, blocks and smudges of yellow, blue, and terracotta, and he marvels at whomever built the scene from such bold slashes of paint.

“You like it?” Joe asks at his elbow.

“It’s incredible,” Nicky says, nodding.

“I know the artist,” Joe says, rubbing his beard, like he’s trying for some kind of nonchalance.

Nicky looks the painting over for a signature but finds none. “Who is it?” he asks, turning his head.

Joe smiles. “Me.”

“You?”

“Me.”

Nicky looks back at the painting, at the warmth and energy captured on the canvas, and feels something like pride uncurl in his chest. “You are exceptionally talented,” he says, still drinking it in. “Is this somewhere real? Or . . .”

“Home,” Joe says simply, and Nicky looks back at him, at his crooked smile and feels an overwhelming impulse to reach out and touch him. He tamps it down, offering a smile instead.

“I am . . . my words don’t do it justice,” he offers, and Joe grins, ducking his head.

“I’m glad you like it.”

“Have you shown it? A gallery . . . ”

Joe huffs a breath of laughter. “No.” He holds up a hand as Nicky prepares to protest. “I tried, back when I first came here. Not this one but others.” He looks up at the painting. “Never got traction. There are so many artists with greater talent than mine.”

“Wrong,” Nicky says. “That is very, very wrong. In my professional opinion. You are wrong.”

Joe laughs again, and gestures toward the kitchen. “Tell me how wrong I am over wine,” he suggests, leading the way.

The wine is good—very good—and Nicky leans back against one of the kitchen counters, fully expecting to good-naturedly spar with Joe about the restaurant they should pick. Instead Joe selects a knife from a block, pulls a chopping board toward him, and begins dicing an onion while Nicky watches.

“You’re making dinner?” Nicky asks.

“Yeah,” Joe says, looking back over his shoulder. “I like to cook, and it’s more fun for two. You don’t mind the wait?”

Nicky shakes his head. “I . . . don’t remember the last time anyone cooked for me, that’s all.”

Joe throws him a look. “You need better dates,” he says wryly, and gestures with the knife back out toward the living room. “Go explore.”

Nicky spends the next hour perusing Joe’s bookshelves, asking questions about the books that are most dogeared, the trinkets and pieces of art that catch his eye, and the photographs of Joe’s friends and family. There are loose sketches sticking out of books that Nicky lingers over, and a charcoal drawing of an older woman propped up against a vase—“My mother,” Joe tells him as Nicky admires it, “I did that years ago.” By the time Joe refills Nicky’s wine glass a third time and hands him a plate, Nicky feels pleasantly at home. They sit at the tiny table behind the couch and Nicky lifts his glass. “Grazie,” he says, and Joe grins and clinks their glasses together.

Joe gestures toward their plates. “This is completely made up,” he says. “I suppose it was someone’s recipe once.”

“It smells delicious,” Nicky tells him, scooping lamb onto his flatbread. “And I didn’t make it, so . . .”

“You cook?”

Nicky chews his food before he answers. “I make things from home,” he says with a shrug. “I have yet to find anywhere that –”

“The pasta!” Joe says, laughing. “Too soft, right?”

Nicky nods. “I’m sure there is somewhere that does it correctly but . . .”

“Not around here,” Joe agrees, tucking into his food. He glances at the soccer game playing on the TV, the sound low, then back at Nicky. “Good?”

Nicky is one tiny shred of dignity away from making soft noises of appreciation over his dish, but settles for an enthusiastic nod, and Joe looks deeply pleased.

Dinner passes in discussion of Joe’s books, Joe’s photographs, the identification of all the people in what’s clearly a family shot sitting on a windowsill. The wine and company and food are a potent mix, and Nicky feels himself relax. He can hear the rain pelting against the windows, and imagines his own flat—a completely serviceable place that he still hasn’t really settled into. He should buy some art, he thinks to himself; he should buy another bookcase, and blanket for the back of the couch.

“Your worst first dates,” Joe says, jolting Nicky out of his reverie.

Nicky pulls a face. “There have been so many,” he says dryly.

Joe laughs, wiping his lips with a napkin. “Tell me.’

Nicky chases the last of his food across his plate with a fork and another piece of flatbread. “Would you like to hear about the time a date told me, after half an hour, I was undoubtedly the reincarnation of his great-great uncle?” he asks. “Or perhaps the time an acquaintance broke out into hives when he saw me.”

Joe raises his eyebrows, looking amused.

“He assured me it was coincidental,” Nicky says solemnly.

Joe hoots with laughter, and Nicky grins.

They trade stories back and forth as Joe stows leftovers and dries the dishes while Nicky washes, and Nicky isn’t sure the last time he laughed so much. 

“I asked if it was the bedhead,” says Joe, recounting a particularly sticky morning after.

Nicky snorts softly. “I’m sure you were just nicely tousled,” he offers, and Joe elbows him, laughing as he wipes down the counters with his towel.

“More wine?” Joe asks.

“What day is it?” Nicky asks.

“Wednesday.”

Nicky shrugs, thinking of the morning. “Why not?” he says, unwilling to give up the warmth of Joe’s flat for the walk home just yet.

The soccer match is long finished, the TV showing edited replays of other games, but Nicky doesn’t care. He sets his glass on the coffee table, and tips his head against the back of the couch, utterly at home.

“Tell me about your first job,” he says, looking back up at Joe’s painting. 

“Selling newspapers?” asks Joe.

Nicky huffs. “In restoration.”

“Ah,” Joe says, smiling. “Where to begin?” And as he unravels a complicated story about his father’s business, Nicky loses himself in the bright colors of the painting, and drifts until he’s fast asleep.

*****

“Nicky,” says Joe. “Nicolò, wake up.”

Nicky blinks, brain sluggishly trying to translate the colors in front of his nose to something he recognizes.

“Wake up,” Joe says again, gently, and Nicky sighs under the warmth of Joe’s hand against his shoulder.

“Where am I?” he mumbles.

Joe laughs softly. “You’re face down on my couch. It’s 6am.”

Nicky opens one eye and peers at Joe, at the faded t-shirt he’s wearing, at his grey pajama bottoms. “Cazzo,” he says fervently, and sits up, wincing when his brain catches up with the movement, crashing into his skull. “Ow.”

“There are painkillers on the coffee table,” Joe says sympathetically. “We drank too much.”

Nicky looks up at Joe and feels mischief flare brightly inside him. “The date,” he offers. “The morning after, the guy with the . . .” He gestures meaningfully. “It was definitely the bedhead,” he says, and Joe frowns, then catches up and laughs.

“Shut up and go home,” he says, shuffling off toward his bedroom. “I’ll pick you up at 8.30.”

“Nine!” Nicky bargains, and drinks from his water glass feeling slow and dazed, but somehow very happy.

*****

A week later, Joe takes Andy’s car to make a delivery—a painting he’s faultlessly repaired. The very moment he steps foot outside the barn, Nile is across the room and standing at Nicky’s bench.

“Hey,” she says, her casual tone completely at odds with the way she’s almost vibrating.

“Hey,” says Nicky, winding a clamp into place on an old ice box he’s converting into a cabinet. “What do you need?”

“I need you to make your move,” Nile says.

Nicky stares at her for a long moment, but it doesn’t make what she’s said any more comprehensible. “I’m sorry?”

“Make your _move_ , man.” Nile leans in, looking conspiratorial. “He is _into_ you.”

Nicky frowns, feeling very confused. “I am moving what? Where?”

Nile stares at him, her mouth set into a perfect line. “Okay, so, play it like you don’t know what I’m talking about. Just don’t mess this up. Because I will end you.” She looks over her shoulder and back. “Andy will do worse.”

Nicky opens his mouth and then closes it again, frowning even more deeply. “. . . what?”

Nile points at him, and then back at herself, and then back at Nicky. “I mean it.”

“Okay?”

“Okay.” She nods once and heads back to her workbench. “End you!” she calls out.

Nicky sits back on his stool and contemplates the spot where Nile had been standing, then picks up another clamp and goes back to work.

Nicky saves every scrap of wood he doesn’t use for his clients, and when he has enough yew, he crafts a small, elegant frame. On a day when Joe is frustrated and grumpy from the demands of his clients and the world’s carelessness with beauty, Nicky ambles over. “I have something for you,” he says, and slides it across the bench. “For the picture of your mother.” 

Joe sits back on his stool, hand over his mouth and Nicky throws him a smile before he goes back to work.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> * You mean so much to me.


	3. The Table

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nicky’s practiced in keeping secrets. He’s known, before, under different circumstances, in a different place, what it means to love someone who doesn’t love you back, and there’s no chance that Joe loves him quite like that.

He begins to dream of Joe’s hands.

At first he dreams that he’s watching Joe at work—a simple replication of something he often does by day, admiring the way Joe works so carefully on every piece of art in front of him. In time, he dreams of Joe painting instead of repairing the works of others, dreams of Joe in a loft full of light, pressing oil against canvas, absorbed and attentive, chewing on his bottom lip as he creates.

Then he dreams of Joe’s hands on him—a touch to his shoulder, to his arm, to his chest, sweeping sawdust from his sweater—and his own hands on Joe, cupping his face and watching Joe’s eyes light up before he presses his lips to the hollow of Joe’s throat. He dreams of Joe reaching for him, pulling him down onto his couch, his bed; of Joe’s nails against his back, of Joe licking his own palm before wrapping his fingers around Nicky’s dick. 

Nicky wakes from such a dream one Sunday morning, thoughts fogged with want, rutting down into the mattress, seeking out the friction he’d imagined. As his mind begins to clear he rolls onto his back, breathless; stares up at the darkened ceiling and tries to sort out the tangle of everything he feels. He’s hard, so fucking hard, and he gives in to it, closes his eyes again and licks his palm, reaches for himself, thinking of Joe. It’s electric, in this half-awake state, to imagine Joe against him, coaxing him to come, telling him how good he feels sliding through Joe’s fist, and when his orgasm punches out of him, it’s because he’s thinking of Joe’s mouth on his, Joe’s cock slick and warm against his own. He slowly, slowly, catches his breath, his body trembling with aftershocks. Only then does he let in the crashing realization that he’s gone and fallen in love.

***** 

Nicky’s practiced in keeping secrets. He’s known, before, under different circumstances, in a different place, what it means to love someone who doesn’t love you back, and there’s no chance that Joe loves him quite like that. And while Joe is very far from being god, Nicky finds there’s familiarity in the practice of settling for what cannot be, of accepting second best. This second best is astonishing, he reminds himself often. To be Joe’s friend, to work alongside him, to have his company day after day is a consolation that makes a mockery of any self-pity he feels. This too will pass, he tells himself. These feelings will not always be so new and acute. The sharp pangs of yearning he feels will dull with time; the dreams themselves will dim.

So they drive to the barn, and they craft their repairs side by side, and Christmas approaches with frightening speed. There are still mugs of tea on Nicky’s bench, still going cold before Nicky sees them, and there is conversation, and there’s laughter. There’s the case to a gramophone player that Nicky repairs, and a portable writing desk, and a box with delicate inlay. There’s a memorable after-work trip to the pub where Andy teaches Nicky how to play darts, and he proves to have an incredible eye. It’s satisfying to hand everyone else their asses, and Joe insists on a group selfie to mark the occasion.

On December 10th Nicky comes down with a cold, and on December 11th he admits defeat and calls Joe to say he’s staying home. It’s December 12th when he wakes, feeling groggy and confused, because someone’s buzzing his apartment with an irritating regularity. He stumbles out of bed and into the kitchen, hits the door release with the heel of his hand, and unlocks the door to his flat. He rips a yard of paper towels from the holder, wads them up, and sneezes vehemently into them just as Joe walks in the door.

“I knew it,” Joe says as Nicky looks at him blearily.

“What are you doing here?” Nicky asks.

Joe looks thoroughly unimpressed, and crosses the kitchen to press the back of his hand to Nicky’s forehead. “You’re way too warm. Did you take something?”

Nicky stares at him. “I was going back to bed.” He sneezes again.

Joe’s expression softens into something exasperated and fond. “Go shower,” he says.

Nicky looks from Joe toward the bathroom and back again. “Why?”

“You’ll feel better for it,” says Joe. “And I say this with love, you stink.”

“I do not.” He sneezes again.

“Yes, you do. Go shower.”

Nicky thinks about protesting, but considers that it’s possible Joe has the upper hand here, since he seems to know what’s going on and Nicky does not. “Dictator,” he mumbles, and it sounds more cutting in his head.

“Where are your clean sheets?”

“Cupboard,” Nicky says, gesturing as he passes it on his way to the bathroom.

The shower does feel good—the prickly, too-good feeling of hot water on over-sensitized skin. Nicky washes himself clumsily then stands under the showerhead until Joe knocks on the door and asks if he’s drowned. Nicky flips him off—so what if Joe can’t see him—but climbs out of the tub and dries himself off, brushes his teeth, and uses up too much toilet paper every time he has to sneeze.

“Here,” Joe says, and he’s opened the door just a crack, enough to stick a hand through holding a fresh t-shirt and pajama bottoms.

Nicky thinks he maybe whines, because that’s very thoughtful, and Joe is so good, and yet he does not love Nicky, and that is sad. He sighs deeply, and pulls on the fresh clothes, combs through the length of his hair with his fingers, then opens the door to find Joe in the hallway, leaning against the wall.

“Are you hungry?” asks Joe.

Nicky thinks about it. “No.”

“Did you drink water?”

Nicky thinks about it. “No.”

“Hopeless,” Joe says. “Come on. I made the bed up for you again.”

Nicky tries to sort Joe’s words into something approximating anything. “You did what to my bed?” he asks, and Joe laughs softly, reaches out to wrap his hand around Nicky’s wrist, and tugs. 

“Follow me,” he says, and Nicky does so.

It turns out that Joe has put fresh sheets on the bed, and shaken out the duvet, and switched out the pillow that was soggy for a new one. He pushes very gently on Nicky’s shoulder so that Nicky sits down, shakes two pills out of a bottle and passes them to Nicky with a glass of water.

“You’ll feel better if you take these,” he says, and Nicky does what he’s told. He’s in no position to argue.

The sheets are deliciously cool as Nicky lies back down, as Joe tugs the duvet up around Nicky’s chin. Joe sits on the edge of the bed, and Nicky watches him, thoroughly confused but grateful for the sheets and the pillow and the company. “Thank you,” Nicky says, yawning.

“I’m going to go to the chemist on the corner and find real tissues,” Joe says firmly. “And maybe soup.”

Nicky wants to tell him they don’t sell soup at the chemist’s, but he’s so very, very tired. “Joe,” he mumbles, closing his eyes.

“Nicky?”

“Do you know?” Nicky asks, and sneezes once more.

“Know what?”

“That I love you.” Nicky mumbles, and then sinks into sleep.

*****

Nicky drifts in and out of sleep for two days. Sometimes Joe is there, coaxing him to eat, to shower, to take medicine, and sometimes Nile is there, telling him in no uncertain terms exactly what he needs to do. When the fog clears, he’s alone in his flat. The fridge is stocked, he thinks someone vacuumed the rug, and there’s a history of the Crusades on his coffee table, open at page 150. He picks it up, and sees that Joe’s scribbled in pencil in the margins, so he finds a scrap of paper and bookmarks the page for later.

There’s a note stuck to the fridge with a magnet from the local Chinese restaurant. 

_Had to leave—my flight’s at noon. Have a good Christmas. See you at New Year’s. J_

Flight, thinks Nicky. Flight . . . and he glances at the calendar on the wall and realizes Joe is on his way home to spend time with his family while the barn is closed. He knew it was coming—Joe had asked him about the gifts to take home to his nephews and nieces—but had thought he had more time. He’d wanted to say goodbye.

He shakes himself, and pulls a plastic bag out from under the sink, where all plastic bags go to die. It’s two weeks, he tells himself as he picks up the discarded tissues on the floor beside his bed—a mere moment. People go without seeing their friends for two weeks all the time. People are lucky if they see their friends as often as he sees Joe. He throws the bag full of tissues in the bin, and pulls a carton of soup out of the fridge.

It’s two weeks, he tells himself as he pours the soup into a pan and sets it on the stove. It’s two weeks, and he should be grateful.

He should be, but he isn’t, and he eats his soup sitting on the kitchen floor.

*****

Nicky goes to the barn even after they close to work on the gift he wants to give Nile. He’s turning a set of paintbrushes for her, shaping the handles with his smallest chisels and finest sandpaper, setting the bristles he purchased in place and wrapping them in brass with Andy’s help. It’s fine work, and takes all his concentration. It’s a good way to stop thinking about Joe—or at least to try, since Joe’s bench is always in his line of sight, and Joe’s scarf is hanging from a peg by the closed barn doors. More than once Nicky has to sit up and let out a long breath, close his eyes and remind himself that he is lucky; remind himself that a few days of loneliness is nothing.

Nicky has no one to shop for, but goes to the street market the following weekend all the same, picks out a set of three bright turquoise bowls for himself that he can set on the coffee table in the living room. He buys two pillows and a blanket, and rearranges them a dozen times. There are soccer matches to watch, and a new novel set in Tunisia to read, but time crawls by without his work to occupy him, and Nicky gives up eventually and takes the train out to Esher each morning, begins work on a table he’s had in his mind’s eye for weeks. It’s a different kind of work to the restoration he’s been doing, and Nicky welcomes the heavier labor, turning the legs on his lathe and selecting the wood for the tabletop. It’s a chimera of sorts, a table made from the wood leftover from other projects. It’s far from the fine furniture of the Musée Carnavalet, but it’s solid and pleasing with its dovetail joints and graceful live edge, and it allows Nicky to work up a sweat, to sink into the pleasure of sanding and planing, and to cut the pad of his thumb with a chisel that slips.

The train back into the city is deserted when Nicky climbs on board on Christmas Eve. He’s felt his spirits sinking all day, and the chocolate he buys at the station is no substitute for the traditions he’s missing, the meals eaten, the once-dear press of family. The emptiness of the carriage reflects his loneliness back at him. He wonders where Joe is--imagines him amid throngs of family, being brutally teased by his sisters and their kids and enjoying every second--and for the first time in a long time he wonders if it’s time to move on. He turns the idea over as he walks from the station to his flat, thinking of the cities he hasn’t yet visited, the opportunities he might have if he, say, relocated to Spain.

But when he drops his backpack inside the kitchen door of his flat and flips on the lights, Nicky shakes himself, and crosses over to where his laptop has been charging all day. There are only so many times you can manage by avoidance, he tells himself; only so many cities to move through pretending they’re the problem, not you. He searches for the closest Catholic church, tracing the route from his flat to its door with his finger against the laptop screen. He changes his clothes, and at 11:45pm on the dot he heads back out into the cold, walks to the church and finds a sliver of space in a crowded pew. The sanctuary is lit by candles, and while the words feel unfamiliar, delivered in English, the music soothes something that aches in Nicky’s heart. It’s not the Christmas he wants, he admits, but it is a Christmas worth having.

It’s snowing lightly when Nicky leaves the service, and he turns the collar of his coat up against the chill. There’s a distracting beauty to the dark streets, he thinks, to the half-dimmed lights of the shops he passes as he dodges groups of friends stumbling from bar to bar. As he waits for the traffic lights to change at the crossing near his flat he looks up, and picks out a handful of stars, bright enough to be visible even above the city. He has wishes, but doesn’t feel ready to make them, and he shoves his hands in his pockets as he crosses the road.

The closer he gets to his flat, the more confused he becomes, sure that someone is sitting on his doorstep, a bag at their feet. Whomever it is, they’re shrouded in shadow, and Nicky stops a few steps away to peer into the dark. “Hello?” he says, and the person looks up.

It’s Joe.

Nicky’s heart beats two quick beats before it slows again, and he takes the last few steps in a hurry, crouching down, worried, reaching out to steady himself with a hand to Joe’s arm. Joe looks tired—is he jetlagged?—and serious, so very, very serious. “What’s wrong?” Nicky asks.

Joe’s gaze travels over his face and he shakes his head, sways forward, and his nose grazes Nicky’s cheek.

Nicky doesn’t think about what he does next—just turns his head enough that their lips touch. He swallows hard as Joe pulls back to look at him, eyes wide, and then Joe’s cupping his face between both his chilled hands and saying “Nicky?”

Nicky kneels and kisses him, and oh _god_ , Joe’s lips part and he kisses him back.

It’s intoxicating. If Nicky had known this was what it would be like to kiss Joe, he would have risked it weeks before, licked his way into his mouth and told him everything, laid his heart bare. When they part, Nicky’s trembling, a lump in his throat, and he shakes his head to see Joe looking at him, eyes warm and bright.

“I missed you,” Joe says simply.

And Nicky laughs and chokes on it, sways forward and lets Joe wrap his arms around him as he tucks his face into Joe’s neck. 

“You’re shaking,” Joe whispers.

Nicky pulls in a breath and nods. “Come inside,” he says, and stands, pulling Joe with him. He has so many questions—when did you get here, why didn’t you call me, how long have you been waiting, what happened to make you come back, why _now_?—but he fumbles his key into the lock with Joe a warm weight at his back, pulls him inside and climbs the stairs, holding onto one of Joe’s hands. Only when they’re inside the flat, dark kitchen lit by the refracted glow of the street lights outside, does he look at Joe again. “I missed you, too,” he says, and this time he smiles, Joe smiling with him, looking at him like he’s precious and rare and new.

“I got the first flight back I could,” says Joe, dropping his duffel bag on the floor, leaning in until their foreheads touch. “I had to see you.”

Nicky swallows hard and kisses Joe again, something chaste and sweet, all his understanding. “You have to be exhausted.”

Joe huffs a laugh. “Yeah.”

“Come to bed,” Nicky says, shrugging out of his coat and hanging it on a hook, waiting until Joe does the same before he pulls him toward his bedroom. “Do you need . . . do you want . . . I can give you a t-shirt, some pajamas . . .”

Joe kisses him, and then kisses him again, and shakes his head, pulling off his sweater. Nicky follows suit, undressing down to his underwear, crawling into bed as Joe does the same. Joe curls up on his side, blinking slowly as he watches Nicky settle, and Nicky’s heart hurts with all the feelings he’s struggling to contain, each one collapsing into something larger until his whole body sings with affection.

“Go to sleep,” he whispers.

“Can’t,” Joe says, reaching for him, pulling him closer, splaying the fingers of his hand at the small of Nicky’s back. “Might miss something.”

Nicky kisses his forehead, then kisses one of Joe’s eyelids, then the other. When he pulls back, Joe’s eyes stay closed. Joe lets out a long breath, and the arm he has thrown around Nicky slackens just a little. 

Nicky wakes twice in the night. It’s been a long time since he last shared his bed with anyone, and when Joe moves, he wakes. But by morning, when he finally opens his eyes, Joe is wrapped around him, chest against Nicky’s back, knees tucked behind Nicky’s knees, and Nicky has no memory of him arranging them just so. He soaks up Joe’s warmth, the solid presence of him so close. Nicky feels boneless, empty of something anxious and restless that’s been eating at him for weeks, and he drifts, drowsy and content, listening to Joe’s steady breathing.

He knows when Joe surfaces by the hitch in his breath and the long hum of approval he makes as he burrows even closer. He rubs his nose over the skin at the top of Nicky’s spine, yawns, and mumbles a soft “good morning.”

Nicky’s heart turns completely over in his chest. “Good morning,” he says back. He presses against Joe, who rolls away just enough to give Nicky room to move, and when Nicky turns and settles at his side, Joe’s watching him with such affection that Nicky feels the tips of his ears get warm. “You’re in my bed,” he says to Joe.

“It’s a nice bed,” Joe says, reaching up to push Nicky’s hair behind his ear. 

“Feeling rested?” Nicky asks.

“Mmmm, yes,” Joe murmurs, and leans in to press his lips to Nicky’s, a chaste good-morning kiss that sends a shiver the whole length of Nicky’s spine. Nicky’s heart clatters noisily in his chest, so loud he supposes Joe can surely hear it—all this from the gentlest press of Joe’s mouth against his. “I want to touch every part of you,” Joe whispers, “But first I really need to . . .”

Nicky laughs softly. “Go. I’ll make coffee.” And Joe grins at him before they roll apart, before they climb out of bed and pad one, then the other, barefoot into the rest of the flat.

It’s early, and quiet, and Nicky spoons grounds into his espresso pot on autopilot, setting the silver pot on the stove and yawning as he listens to Joe move around his bathroom. The toilet flushes, then there’s the click of the medicine cupboard opening and closing, water running, and the unmistakable sound of Joe brushing his teeth. When Joe reappears, Nicky passes him, heading to the bathroom himself and glancing a kiss to the bare skin of Joe’s shoulder. Joe’s not in the kitchen when Nicky comes back, but while the stove is turned off the scent of espresso is strong and rich, and Nicky ambles back to the bedroom to find Joe sprawled in his bed, paging through the novel that had been on Nicky’s bedside table before Joe set two espresso cups in its place. Nicky rounds the bed and slips back underneath the duvet, skims a hand over Joe’s hip to rest on his stomach. 

Joe drops the book on the floor. “Come here,” he says, pulling at Nicky’s arm, manhandling him until Nicky’s lying fully on top of him. Joe reaches up with both hands, pushing Nicky’s hair back from his face. “Do you have any idea how long I’ve wanted to tell you you’re beautiful?” he asks, tone hushed, even reverent, and Nicky can’t stand it a moment longer, leans in and kisses Joe with every feeling he has.

There’s no hurry to their movements at first, to the roll of their hips against one another, leaving each other gasping. Nicky wants to map how he feels onto Joe’s body, pressing affection into every inch of his skin, but Joe’s mouth is intoxicating, his tongue slick against Nicky’s, so Nicky gives in to the luxury of time and want and kisses him and kisses him and kisses him again. He’s distracted, unprepared when Joe rolls them over, when Joes drags his mouth over the pulse point in Nicky’s neck and nips at his collarbone, when he bends to take Nicky’s nipple into his mouth and tongue it until Nicky’s hips twitch helplessly in response..

“I want to touch you,” Nicky says desperately, the fingers of one hand tangled in Joe’s hair, and Joe looks up, smiling, pulls himself back up to kiss Nicky again.

“Me first,” he says, sounding smug, and he cups Nicky through his boxer briefs, rubbing a thumb over the damp head of Nicky’s cock. Nicky swears colorfully, rocking up into the pressure of Joe’s hand, and he drags his nails down Joe’s spine, making Joe thrust down against him. Joe kisses him, and then pulls away, looking delighted as he whispers, “this is going to be fun.” He kneels up to push the duvet off their bodies, and hooks his fingers in the waistband of Nicky’s underwear, humming as Nicky cants his hips and lets Joe pull them off and away. Joe shifts and maneuvers out of his own as Nicky watches hungrily, desperate for them to be touching again.

“Joe . . .” Nicky says as Joe settles back between his thighs, and Joe looks up at him as he licks at the head of Nicky’s cock. 

“Hmmm?” Joe asks.

“ _Fuck_ ,” Nicky manages eloquently.

Joe slowly, slowly works Nicky over with his mouth and his tongue, coaxing him so close to coming that Nicky loses track of the words he’s saying, the curses and compliments he’s heaping on Joe’s head. When Joe backs off, the cool air in the room shocks Nicky into a frustrated moan, and Joe licks up the entire underside of Nicky’s dick before he takes him back into his mouth. Nicky rocks his hips, causing Joe to reach up and pin him to the mattress, and Nicky scrabbles his hands against the sheets, trying to find something to hold onto. He’s close, so close, and Joe pulls off again, noses into the crease of Nicky’s groin and says “You want to come?” Nicky looks at him with something like fury, and something like supplication, and Joe grins up at him, says “You have to say it,” and Nicky groans helplessly. 

“Please,” he manages, panting. “Please Joe, please . . .”

And Joe takes him back into his mouth again, and when Nicky comes it’s so hard he sees stars.

When Nicky’s cognizant again—able to form words, to think past the waves of pleasure still rolling through his body—Joe’s at his side, kissing his shoulder, nosing up into his hair. Nicky hums and chases those kisses, finds Joe’s mouth and shudders at the touch of his tongue, at the taste of himself in Joe’s mouth. He feels Joe’s arm shifting, moving, and realizes Joe is stroking himself against Nicky’s hip.

“No,” Nicky manages, clumsily reaching out to still Joe’s hand. “Please.”

Joe’s eyes darken. “Do you know how much I’ve thought about your hands?” he asks as Nicky wraps his fingers around Joe’s dick. He gasps, his eyelids closing. “It’s been torture, watching you every day . . .” 

Nicky repays the favor of Joe’s attention, works him slowly and thoroughly until Joe’s begging him to bring him over the edge. Even then Nicky slows his hand, has Joe wait on the very precipice of orgasm, making soft, pained noises that make Nicky’s guts twist with want, until Nicky thumbs the head of Joe’s cock and twists his hand, and Joe bucks his hips and comes messily all across Nicky’s hip.

Joe collapses half on top of Nicky, Nicky murmuring endearments into his hair. Nicky drags his hand down Joe’s back in long, gentle strokes, and Joe mumbles something against him—whatever he says a confession Nicky can’t hear.

“I love you,” Nicky murmurs.

Joe slowly lifts his head, his eyes bright, and smiles the most dazzling smile Nicky’s ever seen. “I love you, too,” he says, and Nicky raises his head, kisses Joe’s swollen lips, and wraps his arms around him. They clean up with the last tissues in the box Joe bought Nicky during his cold, and Nicky drags the duvet back up over their bodies. “Do you remember telling me you loved me when you were sick?” Joe asks as Nicky burrows against him.

Nicky freezes and looks at him, sees a smile playing around Joe’s lips but no suggestion that he’s being mocked. “I did what?”

“Told me you loved me.”

Nicky tries to remember something, anything from those hazy few days, but it’s all a blur. He swallows. “What did you . . . what did I . . .”

“You told me and then fell asleep,” Joe says simply. “And I sat on the edge of this bed and looked at the wall for ten solid minutes.” He smiles. “I wondered if it was your fever talking.”

Nicky flops onto his back and scrubs his face with both hands. “You didn’t say anything.”

“I wasn’t going to hold you to something you said when you were ill,” Joe replies, reaching for one of Nicky’s hands and tangling their fingers. “I figured I would wait for you to get there in your own time. Only . . .”

Nicky picks up their joined hands and kisses Joe’s fingertips. “Only?”

Joe shakes his head against the pillow. “I got home and I missed you in my fucking _bones_ ,” he says with a soft laugh. 

“But your family . . .”

“They understood,” Joe says.

And Nicky leans in and kisses him with every ounce of wonder he feels at the very idea, and Joe wraps his arms around him and kisses him back.

*****

They spend the day in bed dozing, tangled up together, stirring only for water and once, for a shower. Afterwards, Joe tumbles Nicky back into bed, presses him face down into the mattress and kisses his way slowly down his back. “I’ve thought about this,” he tells him, grazing his teeth over the curve of Nicky’s ass. “Got myself off thinking about you, about us . . .” and NIcky groans helplessly, shivers and cries out when Joe licks right over his hole. “You like that?” Joe asks before he does it again, and Nicky can only gasp as Joe proceeds to slowly fuck him open with his tongue. It’s the most intimate thing anyone’s ever done to him, and he’d think about that, process it somehow, were he not pushing back desperately against Joe’s mouth.

“Lube?” Joe asks, and Nicky fumbles a hand into the drawer of his bedside table, passes a condom and the lube back to Joe and shivers at the snick of the cap’s opening. After that it’s all a heated, dizzying blur. Joe’s slips one, then two, then three fingers inside him, stretching him carefully, and then Joe’s urging him up onto all fours, pressing the blunt head of his cock inside.

Joe fucks him as if they have all the time in the world, as if there is nothing he’d rather be doing than rolling his hips, sinking inside NIcky and pulling back over and over again. Nicky’s vaguely aware of the sounds he’s making, of Joe’s hands at his hips, at the way Joe’s telling him he feels so good, tight and hot and perfect around him, and Nicky folds his arms beneath him, presses his face into the crook of his elbow as Joe picks up the pace. He feels strung out, suspended in time as if there will never be anything in the world but this, and then Joe reaches his hand to curl his fingers around Nicky’s dick, and Nicky loses himself with a broken shout. 

He comes back to himself as Joe flops down beside him, breathing hard. Joe ties off the condom, drops it on the floor, and then fumbles a hand out to touch him; he’s trembling, Nicky realizes. 

“Okay?” Joe asks, sounding wrecked.

Nicky turns his head with a smile. “God, yes,” he offers fervently, and Joe grins, unsteady and breathless and pleased. It’s Joe who rouses himself to find a washcloth after a while, who cleans them up, and who tucks himself in at Nicky’s back, exactly as he’d been when they woke. Nicky pulls Joe’s hand to rest over his heart, and as he drifts contentedly he hears Joe mumble, “We should buy more sheets.” 

“Okay,” he says, laughing softly, and feels Joe press a kiss to his spine.

*****

The week feels like a precious indulgence, an opportunity to spin something steady and meaningful from the luxury of uninterrupted time. After two days in Nicky’s bed, and two mornings in Nicky’s kitchen trying to stretch the thin contents of the fridge to feed them both, Joe insists they go to his place and makes Nicky pack a bag. “Unless you want to sleep here tonight?”

Nicky crowds him up against the kitchen counter and kisses the question right out of his mouth.

They shop for groceries, bickering gently over peppers and cantaloupe, and mostly manage to get the cold things stowed in Joe’s fridge before they reach for each other again, leaving bread and oranges and stems of ginger in bags on the kitchen floor. Nicky studies the topography of Joe’s body with his hands and his mouth, learns exactly where and how to touch Joe to make him dizzy with want, learns how it feels to sink inside Joe and rest there for a moment, stunned and panting, until Joe pinches him on the arm and begs him to move. They take their time, Nicky stretched out above Joe, watching every expression that crosses his face. And though glancing kisses are all he can manage as everything in his body winds tighter, he can’t help but return to Joe’s mouth, to the touch of Joe’s tongue, to the long and beautiful line of Joe’s throat as Joe shakes apart and comes.

When they surface, Joe cooks, and Nicky wanders the flat again, revisiting the art and the photographs and the books that so intrigued him before. The sketch of Joe’s mother now rests inside the frame Nicky made, hung on the wall, and Nicky notices a history of Genoa shoved under a folded newspaper. He sits cross legged on the couch, loses himself, one by one, in each of Joe’s paintings, so much so that he’s startled when Joe crosses the room to hand him a fragrant bowl of food.

“You need to show these,” he says, gesturing to the paintings as he heaps rice onto a fork.

Joe looks at him fondly, then at his art, hitches one shoulder and says, “Maybe I will.”

*****

They take the train to the barn for New Year’s Eve, bundled up tightly against the cold, Joe reaching for Nicky’s hand as soon as they’re seated. It’s a short ride, just long enough to warm them through before they tumble outside again, and despite the chill they walk slowly to the barn, stopping whenever the trees thin enough to let them stare up at the stars.

The barn’s warm, lit only by the workbench lamps and candles in iron-worked lanterns that are clearly Andy’s work. There are four chairs arranged in a circle, dragged over from the kitchen, and Andy’s sitting with her hands wrapped around a mug and her feet on a wooden crate. She looks happy, even content, and Nicky tries to figure out the scope of what’s different about her.

Joe pauses halfway through taking off his coat and says, “You’ve heard from Quynh.”

Andy grins and stares into her mug for a moment. “She’ll be home in two weeks,” she says, and Joe walks over to give her a high five while Nicky watches, glad to see Andy happy but very confused.

“Who is Quynh?” he asks.

Joe hangs up his coat and heads to the kitchen. “Tell him,” he calls back, and busies himself with the kettle as Andy explains. It’s a long story. Nicky stuffs his gloves in his pockets and sheds his coat, settles in a chair and accepts the tea Joe hands him while he listens. The mug is warm and he wraps his hands around it, sipping gratefully as Joe sits down too.

“So,” Andy finishes, “she’s coming home.”

“That’s great, boss,” Joe offers.

Nicky hums his agreement. “I’m looking forward to meeting her.” He sips his tea and smiles. “She obviously makes you very happy.”

“Speaking of,” says Andy. “What gives?”

Nicky looks at Joe, who’s watching him with the strangest expression on his face. “You’re drinking your tea,” Joe says, and Nicky looks at his mug and back at Joe. 

“Yes?”

“You always forget.”

Nicky thinks about it. “Do I?”

“Yes,” says Joe, and looks over at Andy as if for sympathy.

“Nile’s going to be so pissed,” Andy says smugly. “She thought it’d take another month for sure.”

Nicky has the vague sense that he should be insulted by that, but it’s too much work to figure it out. Instead he drinks his tea and lets the conversation between Joe and Andy drift slowly around him, soaks up the ever-present fragrance of sawdust, the vague scent of resin and solvent, sinks into the familiarity of the barn and waits for Nile to arrive.

He doesn’t have long to wait--there’s the sound of tires on gravel and someone getting out of a car, the clink of glass bottles, and then Nile’s opening up the door and walking in with a box full of liquor.

“I couldn’t decide,” she says, nodding down at the box in her arms. “So I bought everything.”

They drink, and Nile pays Andy her £30 in winnings, and Nicky keeps catching Joe’s eye and feeling warmed from the inside out every time he does. There’s a lot to catch up on in everyone’s lives, and they tease one another, laugh together, talk until they can hear the village clock strike twelve. “Presents,” Andy says gleefully, and then they argue about who should go first.

Nile loves her paintbrushes, seems stunned by how beautiful they are, and squeezes Nicky tight as her wordless thank you. Andy is enraptured by the bowls that Nile’s thrown, trading time at a wheel for a teapot repair. “For pho,” Nile tells her, and gets a fierce one-armed hug.

“I got the best present,” Andy says. “Sorry losers.” She grins at Joe, who’s bouncing his knee impatiently. “God help me, go look under your bench already.”

Joe bounds across the room and does so, then pulls out an actual sword.

“Jesus, Andy,” Nile says, looking alarmed. “What the fuck?”

Andy grins delightedly. “I’ll teach you how to use it, too,” she says to Joe, who looks utterly delighted.

“Do I look dashing?” he asks.

“Put that _down_ ,” Nile says. “Swear to god. . . “

“Yeah,” says Andy. “It’s Nicky’s turn.”

Joe sets the sword on his workbench with a clatter, and reaches into his messenger bag, grinning all the while. “Here,” he says, coming back to sit down, offering Nicky something malleable and soft, wrapped with brown paper and inexpertly tied with twine.

Nicky pulls at the string and unfolds the paper with patience, well aware he’s exasperating the other three. When he loosens the package completely, out slips a slate-grey scarf, finely knitted from the softest yarn Nicky’s ever touched. He blinks, rubbing the knit between his thumb and forefinger. “You made this?” he asks.

Joe smiles. “I did.”

“ _When_?”

“Took me weeks,” Joe confesses, and Andy cackles delightedly. 

“It’s true,” says Nile. “He struggled.”

Nicky unfolds the scarf and wraps it around his neck. “You made this,” he says again in wonder, and Joe laughs. 

“Do you like it?”

Nicky suddenly feels too many things, sitting in the barn, surrounded by people he cares about and who care for him. “I do,” he says thickly, and Nile waves a hand, says “Nope, nope, we are _not_ getting misty, we are _not_ ,” and Andy grins, and Joe gets up and comes over, sets his hands on the arms of Nicky’s chair, and says “you’re welcome, habibi.” 

NIcky reaches up happily, and pulls him into a kiss.


End file.
